


cigarettes and tiny liquor bottles

by Etwas_Schlau



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Roommates/Housemates, Caffeine Addiction, Developing Relationship, F/F, Fluff and Angst, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Insomnia, Lowercase, Movie Night, One Shot, POV Second Person, Present Tense, Recreational Drug Use, References to Depression, Romance, Suggestive Themes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-31
Updated: 2017-07-31
Packaged: 2018-12-09 09:42:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11666562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Etwas_Schlau/pseuds/Etwas_Schlau
Summary: you need a roommate. a girl with electric blue hair and a caffeine addiction crashes into your life like a runaway train. you bond over cheap horror movies and a mutual disdain towards existing.





	cigarettes and tiny liquor bottles

**Author's Note:**

> **Note:** I do not own Steven Universe. All rights to the cartoon and its characters belong to Rebecca Sugar.
> 
> lapis lazuli is a stoner insomniac who struggles with depression and peridot is very gay: the roommate AU. i apologize in advance for the formatting, i wrote this on my phone in the middle of the night and i'm very lazy. enjoy

when she answers your ad you're too desperate to be picky. she moves in quietly in the dead of night; one day you live alone and the next lapis lazuli is your roommate.

your first meeting occurs when you stagger to the kitchen at 3 am and she's at the counter. she's pouring an energy drink into a thermos of black coffee and you squint at her.

"need energy?" you ask awkwardly, an attempt to diffuse tension.

she turns her head, slow and far-away. "...yeah"

"what're you up to?" before she can be suspicious of intentions you barrel on, "that you need the suicide energy concoction for."

"can't sleep."

your brows raise of their own accord. "and caffeine is the way to fix that?"

"I need the caffeine because I'm tired," she acts like it's obvious.

"if you're tired why don't you sleep?"

"because I can't." your prying eyes urge her to go on. she shrugs. "if I'm going to be up I need to be _up_."

"that makes no sense." you're blunt, it's late.

she nods once dazedly. "okay."

you leave her to her sleep-deprived devices. you dream in shades in shades of blue that night.

\----

she passes like a ghost at all hours of the day. you begin to wonder if she ever sleeps. you can almost gauge how rested she's been by the outrageous number of energy drink cans in the refrigerator. you make sure to leave her caffeine shrine alone and put your groceries in a different corner of the fridge.

one morning you catch her asleep standing up in the kitchen. you can then confirm she does, in fact, sleep. you shake her awake.

"what?"

"you were asleep."

tight lips and sharp eyes flash. "leave me next time."

"but you could get hurt-"

"leave me."

she retreats to her room and you don't see any of her for a week.

\----

you're watching a cheap horror movie of an evening when she sits down on the couch next to you. your heart beats in your throat.

"you know the guy next door is the killer, right?" she suddenly asks, relaxed.

you swallow. she never makes small talk. "of course, they've been dropping blatant hints the whole film."

a teenage girl dramatically screams as bright red, clearly fake blood blooms across her chest onscreen. lapis breaks into giggles and you know something's off. you stare at her red tinted eyes.

"are you high?"

her laughter calms. "maybe."

she scoots closer and rests her head on your shoulder. you can't breathe.

"the lesbian always dies," she whispers, drunkenly amused.

"I'm surprised there are gay characters at all," you reply. she snorts

"lucky my life isn't a horror movie, I'd have died years ago."

you blush. is she flirting? the lines are too blurred by now.

"lapis." your voice is hesitant. "are you okay?"

silence.

"lapis?" she snores softly in your ear.

you sigh and watch the rest of the film quietly. your shoulder tingles long after you've gone to bed.

\----

somehow you aren't strangers anymore. you trade friendly smiles and occasional complaints about shitty bosses. Sunday becomes 'low-budget scary movie night.'

more often than not she briefly dozes off during the films. you take the opportunity to admire electric blue hair and the slope of her jawline. you no longer worry about making a good impression on her; instead you pray she doesn't notice when you stare at her lips.

some nights the apartment reeks of smoke (and not the cigarette kind.) this is often accompanied by muffled music from her room, single songs left on repeat throughout the night. no amount of pillows stuffed over your head can remedy your coworkers admonishing you for continuously humming 'daddy issues' by the neighbourhood for hours on end.

"stop making me watch 'the gingerdead man,'" she says once as you settle in for a movie marathon. "one time was too many."

"stop replaying 'new americana' at four in the morning," you challenge back. she quiets.

that night she plays 'rape me' by nirvana instead. you groan. lapis lazuli is a smartass.

\----

increasingly often you find yourself breathing her name as your hands wander beneath your sheets at night. whenever she crashes on the couch fully clothed for twenty-minute power naps before work, her ill fitting uniform shirts ride up and your face burns at the glimpses of skin.

one drunken night she passes out on the floor in a racerback and you discover tattoos inked across the planes of her back. they're wings mimicking the shape of ocean waves, lined in black and accented with a spectrum of blues. you don't say anything about them but the image won't leave your mind.

blue becomes your favourite colour.

you contemplate getting tattoos of your own for quite some time. in a leap of bold confidence you ride the bus to the downtown tattoo parlour on a rainy afternoon. you sit for almost two hours and leave with a round, black-eyed cartoon alien head on the inside of your left forearm by your elbow.

the swelling heals by the next upcoming Sunday. as lapis makes popcorn you change into a short sleeved shirt to flaunt your new ink. she doesn't notice at first and you forget about showing off, absorbed in the night's sci-fi entertainment. (you'd had to broaden your movie night horizons because you were running out of low-budget horror flicks to watch.)

four movies later you and lapis get into a heated argument about whether or not Alien: Resurrection is a better film than Alien³. you say it is; she disagrees.

"you only like Alien³ more because Sigourney Weaver spends more of the movie with a shaved head!" you claim confrontationally, almost jealous of the way she'd ogled the movie star.

"short haired girls are hot!" she rationalizes loudly.

you both fall silent for a moment at her words. you glance up at your own close-cropped hair, heart fluttering like a hummingbird.

suddenly she comments, "did you get a tattoo?"

your eyes dart down to the inking on your arm then back up to hers. "uh, yeah."

she grins. "you dork."

"hey! you've spent twenty minutes trying to convince me the glory of the mundane cash grab sequel that is Alien³ and _I'm_ the dork?"

"critique all you want, I know you enjoyed it!"

you scoff, indignant. "I did not!"

"I saw you smiling!"

your breath catches in your throat at the thought of her watching you instead of the movie. "well maybe if you'd paid more attention to the film instead of my reactions you'd have seen how bad it was," you quip, lips curling into a smirk.

is it the lowlight in the apartment or are her cheeks flushing red?

"still," she taunts, "you got a nerd tattoo.

"it's an alien tattoo!"

"no, _this_ is an alien tattoo!" she smoothly lifts her shirt up, revealing an artistic depiction of a xenomorph (from the very movie franchise you'd been binging) planted on her skin beneath her left breast. you gaze at the detailed ink in awe, trying, and miserably failing, to avoid making eyes at her chest.

you come to your senses after a moment. "that, t-that's not fair!"

she laughs. "you're adorable."

you start to protest but she grabs you by the waist and pulls you against her chest. "let's watch Prometheus next," she suggests, taking the TV remote from your hands.

you nod once dazedly. "o-okay."

\----

lapis works late and you have the apartment to yourself. you close your eyes and imagine her steel grey eyes boring into yours, chapped lips on your neck. with enough vision you can pretend your hands touching yourself are hers. because you're alone you whimper freely into the darkness with her name on your tongue.

on the razor blade edge of ecstasy you hear a crash from the kitchen. you slide back into your alien pyjama bottoms and skirt from your room. lapis stands in the dark, flushed, sweating. is that the fly of her jeans down?

your eyes widen. she swallows.

you don't think as you stride across the room and slam into her; you meet like fire and ice and comets streaking across the night sky. you're salt and she's an open wound but she won't stop pulling you in like magnetic poles meeting.

things aren't the same after that. hooded eyes and fleeting touches and the simple desire to feel her skin near yours. there's laughter and teasing and pillow talk, midnight conversations about the whole world expanding around you.

but then there's bile. yelling and tear-stained cheeks and sleepless lavender-blemished eyes alight with fury and fear. there come tremors and breakdowns and those angry grey eyes aren't angry anymore, heavy with a blatant, tired despair that chills to the bone.

when she sinks underwater, sputtering and drowning, you hold onto her. you keep her afloat and promise to help her learn to swim again. you drive her to therapist appointments and remind her to take her pills until she can tread water on her own again.

once fire and ice burn out, the electricity never ceases. you become comfortable and, dare you say, domestic. you bicker and peck each other with chaste kisses before work and bed and dinner and there's no more wondering where you stand. bands on your fingers state your dedication to one another, though you never hold a ceremony because you don't feel like you need it. after all, you find all the reassurance you need in electric blue smiles and restful nights and Blistex-smeared lips whispering promises of forever.

**Author's Note:**

> views or opinions expressed by characters on the quality of movies from the Alien franchise do not represent the views or opinions of the author.
> 
> @Blistex, you're welcome for the promo. hmu if you wanna sponsor me.
> 
> find me on tumblr at comrade-schlau.tumblr.com


End file.
